The Asako Chronicles
by Klaelman
Summary: A boy, suffering from amnesia, traveling across the continent of faraway Asako, begins to remember snipets from his past: memories of pain, despair, and of a people betrayed.


I wanted to do something like this, so, I did. This is a story set in my own invented area--I'll get a bit more in-depth into that one in a chapter or two. As it stands, this is just the first chapter.

**Prologue**

He ran. Tree branches swiped at his body as he fled through the forest, stumbling over uneven terrain and rocks, fleeing from everything. Everyone. The fields. The mine. The whips. The yells, shrill and filled with pain.

His masters.

He ran as fast as his 8 year old legs could carry him. He tripped over rock and landed hard on his knee, then got up and kept running, ignoring the pain. His whole body felt like pain. But it wasn't anything new; he could keep running, had to keep running. It was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

The pain.

He stumbled once again, yelping out loud and landing hard on his stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs. He lay there, dazed, for several seconds before he heard the howls—the retched, evil howls of the Houndoom chasing after his scent. He got up and took a step before he faltered and fell—straight through the ground.

He awoke, his head throbbing in pain with the sound of rushing water echoing off the walls. Walls? He thought, until a throb wrenched his mind away from it. He opened his eyes and looked around. It was nearly pitch black, and what little he could see from the dark full-moon light filtering through a whole in the ceiling gave him the image of solid stone walls and large fang-like protrusions from the ceiling that made him think of those Houndoom again. He cringed, remembering his dangerous escape from the slave pens.

The guard, drunk as he usually was on duty, had opened his cage as he usually did to those of the young slaves. He didn't know what he had intended to do, because the guard had never opened _his_ cage before, but from what he could hear from other pens, it was very painful—he still had nightmares from the screams. The guard made to grab for him, but he had been smart; he took a rock he had found from the other day, a nice, gleaming smooth black rock that had attracted his eyes the day before, and struck the drunk guard atop his balding, oily head. That had been more than enough to knock him out, and from that moment on, he had run.

He took a look around the cave he was in. The headache was subsiding, and his eyes were adjusting to the near pitch black enough to make out the simpler details of the cavern he had fallen into. The ceiling was almost imperceivable, save for the opening up top. The walls were rounded, as though a giant spoon had gouged them out, and there were small offshoots of caves from where he sat, though he couldn't tell where any of them led to. He took notice of the sound of rushing water again, and stood up on shaky legs, his vision blurring once before his sight came back. He took cautious steps in the direction he thought it was coming from—he didn't need to fall again, once was enough.

The sound seemed to echo stronger from one opening to his side, so he entered it and followed as it went down at a slight angle. He could feel the trickle of water running down slope, and before he knew it, he had come to a beauty he knew would never again be matched for so long as he would live.

Moonlight glittered down openings in the cavern's ceiling, sparkling off crystals on the walls and casting beautiful hues of blue and green into the sparkling clear river rushing through. Strains of stones of different colors ran through the walls, catching the light and glittering in a dazzling display of ethereal beauty. He could feel his heart soar as the roar of rushing water ricocheted off the walls, the spray catching the light and reflecting it back to almost overwhelm his senses. He had found a paradise greater than anything he had ever known.

His legs, tired from the running and the climbing, collapsed under him, and he landed next to an oddly smooth stone. This rock was almost as large as his own head, and the light reflected through it gave off a peaceful green glow to match some of the strains one the wall. As he rested his hand on the stone, he almost thought that he could feel an odd warmth coming from it; as he felt it, though, his long, long night finally caught up with him, and his eyelids drooped. He yawned loudly, and curled up, resting his head on the stone as a makeshift pillow, not noticing as he drifted off that the stone seemed to almost glow a warm green light, brighter than the light from the moon could have produced.

Yeah, fairly simple. I'll get around to writing another one, now that I have a good idea of where I want to take this thing.


End file.
